Thursday, 23 January 2014

Year of Family Farming 1/52

(I'm going to play catch up and post three of these in a row, to get to week 3, you know, being a bit late to get started!)

It's so damn cool that is actually International Year of Family Farming that I've decided to do a weekly moment celebrating it, as we're in it up to our ears, three generations on this particular patch of land, another three before us.

We're aware of how lucky we are, perhaps I'm most grateful of all that everyone works together here so happily (it's not just PR spin or show, we actually all get along).

This week has been a tough week with a massive electrical storm at it's start. We think a lightening strike freaked out our 8-week-old meat birds (due for processing the next day) and they stormed the electric netting fence. We lost (literally lost, never seen again) some of them, while about half perished in the netting or via foxes who must have been on the scene as quick as a wink. It meant we couldn't honour our delivery to our supplier in Sydney this fortnight, and that all the upfront costs already paid for that batch of birds were lost.

But like farmers do everywhere, every day, we move on. And we get to do it together. We pick fresh corn. We salvage tomatoes from the market garden and turn them into delicious tomato jam.

And we thank our lucky stars for small hands participating in fresh food, clean dirt under fingernails and for dinner on the table with zero food miles (and no chemicals).

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Year of Family Farming 1/52

(I'm going to play catch up and post three of these in a row, to get to week 3, you know, being a bit late to get started!)

It's so damn cool that is actually International Year of Family Farming that I've decided to do a weekly moment celebrating it, as we're in it up to our ears, three generations on this particular patch of land, another three before us.

We're aware of how lucky we are, perhaps I'm most grateful of all that everyone works together here so happily (it's not just PR spin or show, we actually all get along).

This week has been a tough week with a massive electrical storm at it's start. We think a lightening strike freaked out our 8-week-old meat birds (due for processing the next day) and they stormed the electric netting fence. We lost (literally lost, never seen again) some of them, while about half perished in the netting or via foxes who must have been on the scene as quick as a wink. It meant we couldn't honour our delivery to our supplier in Sydney this fortnight, and that all the upfront costs already paid for that batch of birds were lost.

But like farmers do everywhere, every day, we move on. And we get to do it together. We pick fresh corn. We salvage tomatoes from the market garden and turn them into delicious tomato jam.

And we thank our lucky stars for small hands participating in fresh food, clean dirt under fingernails and for dinner on the table with zero food miles (and no chemicals).